Three paths to the summit: understanding mountaineering through game-playing, deep ecology and art

ABSTRACT

The climb of Gasherbrum IV’s (7,925 m) ‘Shining Wall’ in 1985 by Voytek Kurtyka and Robert Schauer is considered one of the greatest mountaineering achievements in the twentieth century, even though the two climbers did not reach the summit. The article explores three ways of understanding mountaineering without the objective of reaching the summit. I start with a game-playing approach and then a view on mountaineering that takes its inspiration from deep ecology and argue that while both have the potential for explaining important aspects of mountaineering, neither will fully account for the value of climbing mountains without summiting. Finally, I argue that we can supplement either of these two views with a radically different way of understanding mountaineering, which involves creating and appreciating a work of art.

KEYWORDS:

• Nature sport
• mountaineering
• deep ecology
• gameplay
• art
• summiting

The climb of Gasherbrum IV’s (7,925  m) ‘Shining Wall’ in 1985 by Voytek Kurtyka and Robert Schauer is considered one of the greatest mountaineering achievements in the twentieth century, despite the fact that the two climbers did not reach the summit (Crouch 2000). After climbing the 2,500-meter wall, they were hit by a storm and forced to wait two days, only 100 meters below the summit, without food or water, before barely being able to descend. Reaching the summit is without doubt an important part of mountaineering, but it is not the only goal. How is it that Kurtyka and Schauer’s ascent could still be deemed a success?

The main aim of this article is to explore the question of whether it is possible to climb mountains without the objective of reaching the summit. The three paths I will discuss refer to various ways of understanding mountaineering. I start with a kind of view that is well established within the philosophy of sport; a game-playing approach on which mountaineering is a game with rules and the summit as the goal. I argue that while such a view has the potential to explain important aspects of mountaineering, it fails to fully account for the value of climbing mountains without summiting. I then examine a view on mountaineering that takes its inspiration from deep ecology. Although it also has its merits, primarily by attending to the way we see and treat mountains, neither will this fully explain the apparent success of an ascent like Kurtyka and Schauer’s. But, I will argue that we can supplement either of these two views with a radically different way of understanding mountaineering, as involving the creation and appreciation of a work of art. This is explored in the final part of the paper.

Before we start, let me also make clear there are many other explanations to why the summit has such importance, ranging from sociological and psychological to philosophical, which will not be touched upon in this article. Climbing could for instance be akin to a form of addiction. Regular and extreme mountaineering can show characteristic properties of behavioral addictions (Habelt et al. 2023). Other competing or complementary views could include mountaineering as self-development (Treanor 2010), or as a form of conflict between inner motivation and desires (Howe 2008).

Mountaineering as game-playing

Did Kurtyka and Schauer play a game on Gasherbrum IV, and did they in some sense lose, when they failed to reach its summit? Lito Tejada-Flores, American author and climber, later also filmmaker and ski instructor, published in 1967 the essay Games Climbers Play (1978), that has become a classic in climbing literature. He proposes that climbing should be understood as hierarchy of overlapping games, each defined by a set of rules and an appropriate field of play.¹ In each climbing game, rules secure a minimum of challenge and personal satisfaction, as well as playing a role in climbing ethics.² ‘They are designed to conserve the climber’s feeling of personal (moral) accomplishment against the meaninglessness of a success which represents merely technological victory’ (1978, 18).

Tejada-Flores takes bouldering to be the most complex game in the climbing hierarchy, as it has most rules (1978, 18). All means except climbing shoes and chalk, are prohibited to preserve the challenge of climbing a rock that could otherwise be scaled just by the use of a ladder. The rules in climbing are negative, they state what’s not allowed. The more the game changes toward higher and more complex objectives, the fewer rules will be needed. Ropes are allowed in sports climbing, ladders are used in the icefall below Mount Everest and bottled oxygen higher up. The reason for this is that high mountains have offered sufficient challenge just by being inaccessible.

Conceiving mountaineering as a set of games anticipates several of Bernard Suits’ main ideas (2014).³ Challenging Wittgenstein’s idea that games can only be described by family-resemblance, Suits defends the following definition of game-playing:

To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs [prelusory goal], using only means permitted by rules [lusory means], where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favor of less efficient means [constitutive rules], and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity “[lusory attitude].

(2014, 43)”

Game playing involves aiming towards a specific goal, and to do so, one must embrace a playful mindset known as a lusory attitude. This attitude is essential to overcome the challenges that make the game more difficult than necessary and to accept its rules. Bouldering again works as a good illustration of Suits’ idea. Climbers who crawl down under a large boulder and search for the most challenging way to the top must adopt a playful attitude towards their endeavor. Without these, they would just ascend the rock by taking the easiest path.

Let us start by looking at the relation between rules and natural limitations in mountaineering. Suits’ book, The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, largely takes the form of a dialogue between Skepticus and the Grasshopper, and Chapter 8 explicitly explores the question of whether mountaineering should be classified as a game, given its lack of opponents and explicit rules. Skepticus here raises an objection that resembles Tejada-Flores’ idea: Mountain climbing seems to be an instance of a game where there is no need for constitutive rules. Natural limitations fill this role, we thus have a counterexample to the definition given above.

Skepticus refers to Sir Edmund Hillary preparing to climb Mount Everest and points out ths in other games arbitrary rules are introduced, in climbing this will naturally be regulated by the equipment available and how much of it can we carry with us. ‘[Hillary] employs all the most efficient means available to him’ (Suits 2014, 90).

Suits’ response, in the voice of the Grasshopper, is to ask us instead to imagine that Hillary reaches the summit of Everest, but unbeknownst to him, an escalator has been built on the other side of the mountain. He only discovers this when he is met there by a stranger who has used it to reach the summit. Had Hillary known about the escalator, he would either have to introduce an explicit rule to the game not to use it or choose another mountain, without an escalator. He then finds such a mountain, Mount Invincible, but during preparations at home in London he meets the stranger from Everest again. It now becomes clear that the stranger has already been to Mount Invincible, this time by helicopter. Hillary immediately cancels his plans and searches for yet another mountain, with no escalator and no possibility of landing on the top. He eventually finds one, Mount Impossible, and climbs it (Suits 2014, 91).

The example aims to show that even if mountaineering, understood as a game, does not necessarily have a set of predefined constitutive rules, Hillary is still playing a game with rules. Whereas in ordinary games we first choose a goal and then limit the possibility of reaching it by introducing rules, Hillary picks a goal based on the means available to reach it. And for Suits this does not constitute a relevant difference: ‘There is no difference in principle between ruling out use of the escalator on Mount Everest and ruling out Mount Everest in favor of Mount Impossible’ (2014, 92).

The original objection was that mountain climbing serves as an example of a game that does not need explicit rules, the mountain itself is enough. This may well have been the case in 1953 when Hillary climbed Everest. Climbers used the means they had, carried up all the equipment they could, and reached the summit using all the best equipment of the time. The problem is that only at a very early stage in the history of mountaineering does it seem correct to claim that natural limitations fully replace conventional rules. Since then, technological advances have made nearly all equipment more lightweight, stronger, warmer, and reliable, as well as introducing new innovations. Bottled oxygen illustrates the point well. It was used even at the time of Hillary’s ascent and was believed to be necessary to survive above 8,000 meters. And while later ascents have proven it possible to climb Mount Everest without bottled oxygen, its use is as frequent as ever.⁴

Modern commercialized Himalaya-climbing also shows the problem with Skepticus’ idea. Although escalators and helicopters are ruled out, it is not as clear what Suits’ Hillary-character would say if the mountain he was to climb was fully equipped with fixed ropes, tents were set up along the way and food and lightweight oxygen equipment placed as needed, as is the case with modern client-based Himalaya climbing.

A new version of such facilitation happened in 2023, when Norwegian climber Kristin Harila was to climb Manaslu (8,163 m) as part of her attempt to be the fastest to reach the summit of all 8,000-meter peaks. While she landed by helicopter in Base Camp, several Sherpas were dropped off higher on the mountain, at Camp 2. They then fixed ropes down the mountain and established the route. Harila later responded to criticism and claimed it was part of the game due to safety reasons, as the expedition came late in the season, at a time when there was no longer a fixed route on the mountain (Meirik 2023). Whereas other expeditions benefited from arriving at a fully prepared mountain, the argument was that such use of a helicopter made no difference. In the end, the main difference left between the escalator and the fully fixed mountain is that in the latter, you have made it to the top yourself, even if you pulled yourself up by ropes others have placed and slept in tents that others have carried, or even flew, up.

Conceiving mountaineering as a kind of game, in the way Tejada-Flores and Suits do, seems to imply that there need only be one constitutive rule prohibiting the use of more efficient means for reaching the prelusory goal. In the case of high-altitude mountaineering, we end up with a game where the rule is just ‘basecamp to summit’ - minimally understood as a requirement to move your own body this distance.⁵ Let us now see how such a minimal conception has implications for discussions of climbing ethics.

Tejada-Flores holds that ‘the expedition game’ is the simplest of all climbing games, since ‘virtually nothing is forbidden to the climber’ (1978, 18). He also wants rules to serve as ‘a useful scale against which to discuss climbing ethics, since unethical behaviour involves a disregard of certain rules’ (1978, 20). With only one rule within the game of expedition climbing, it’s hard to say that one achievement is better than another. Insofar as they both reach the summit, they are both cases of winning the game. Using less fixed rope or no bottled oxygen makes no difference, as neither are prohibited by the rules.

One option is to introduce new games with additional rules. One for expedition climbing without fixed ropes, another for expedition climbing without bottled oxygen, and so on. The variations seem endless, as people are continuously coming up with new challenges.

The following example illustrates a problem with this idea. In 2023, three American climbers made an impressive 5-day alpine style ascent of the 3,000-meter north face of Jannu (7,710  m). The wall had previously only been climbed by a Russian team over 55 days, involving 10 climbers, an overwhelming amount of fixed ropes, and so on. Conceiving these two ascents as instances of different games makes it difficult to say that one of them is better than the other.⁶ But they are ascents of the same wall, even part of the same route, and the climbing community celebrated the achievement on this background. What is missing here is the concept of ‘style’, within a single climbing game.

Suits’ presentation of games is widely recognized to be of a formalistic type, where a sport is constituted by the rules that regulate it. A common objection to such views is that they do not take into account non-rule-governed norms in sport (Devine and Lopez Frias 2020). Mountaineering consists not only of a set of rules that make up the game, but just as much of norms for what is considered good and bad style. The difference between climbing Everest with and without bottled oxygen is not one between two games of expedition climbing but playing one game according to different norms of style. Flying a helicopter to the top on a mountaineering expedition or hanging on a bolt while sport climbing will be breaking the rules. A norm, on the other hand, could in this context be an ideal towards which we strive. We still play the game and don’t break the rules if we fix a rope on a mountain or drill a bolt on a pitch that might be climbable without it. But we challenge norms for what is considered good style.

Let me also add a final point about winning games of mountaineering. Game-playing implies that the game has a goal, and Suits distinguishes between two kinds. The prelusory goal is the specific state one tries to bring about and can be achieved independently of a game. The lusory goal is winning and can only be achieved within the context of a game. In high-altitude mountaineering, as I have described it, the prelusory goal is standing on the summit and the lusory goal is to get there from basecamp under one’s own power. On this view, the question of success becomes all-or-nothing. Failing to reach the summit implies losing the game.

We now begin to see why game-playing views are insufficient to account for the apparent success of Kurtyka and Schauer. They followed the rules of climbing alpine style, with no fixed ropes or help from other climbers. But they failed to reach the summit, and although they played in the very best of styles, they lost the game. Conceiving mountaineering as a game has its advantages when accounting for rules, ethics and style, but seems to miss out on the possible value of an ascent that fails to reach the summit. Let us now investigate a view without the summit as the goal, one that aims to change our whole mindset towards mountains and completely ignore the strong pull towards the summit.

Naess’ deep-ecological view on mountaineering

Founder of the deep-ecological movement, Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess (1912–2009), was also an experienced climber and spent a large part of life living in the mountains. In his deep ecology we find a candidate for a view on nature, mountains included, that radically alters our relation to it. Akin to much other environmental philosophy, it shares a non-anthropocentric view where nature has intrinsic value, wholly independent of human interests. Nature is not something that exclusively belongs to us, and we have no right to dominate it.⁷

To further argue for this view, Naess introduces the distinction between deep and shallow ecology. Shallow ecology seeks to solve challenges such as climate change and man-made nature destruction with the aim of technological advances and calling for isolated measures. And this can all take place within an anthropocentric view, along with continued economic growth. Deep ecology, on the other hand, will challenge this whole mindset. A full revision of our way of thinking, lifestyle and attitude towards nature is required. An example is the way shallow ecological views talk about how nature should be preserved for future generations. Deep ecology, by contrast, would say that even asking the question about preservation this way is a mistake. Nature does not belong to us and is therefore not something we can pass on; we have it on loan.

This distinction between deep and shallow ecology can also be applied to the way we relate to mountains. On a shallow view, we will be allowed to continue using the mountains as a means for our own ends. Overcrowded mountains like Mount Everest clearly illustrate the conflicts and problems that follow. But if we take the necessary steps to reduce environmental impact, we can continue today’s guiding of masses of climbers. Examples can be clean-up operations, like in 2020, when more than two tons of garbage were brought down from higher camps on Everest (Syz 2021), and the construction of toilets in base camp to prevent contamination of drinking water. Again, deep ecology will challenge the entire mindset behind such initiatives. Actions of this kind will only be superficial and temporary, ignoring the real underlying problem related to the way mountains are perceived and, in turn, treated.

An example of the opposite can be found in Naess’ own expedition in 1971 to Tseringma (7,134  m) in Nepal. Naess went with fellow pioneers in environmental thinking Nils Faarlund and Sigmund Kvaløy on an expedition, or ‘journey’ as they referred it. Tseringma is one of Sherpa Buddhism’s most sacred mountains, and the three climbers had, from the start decided not to climb it, but to turn 1000 meters below the summit.⁸ Not only was this act motivated by respect for the mountain’s divinity, but also intended to demonstrate that mountaineering is about more than reaching the top. In later reports, they repeatedly emphasized the experience of just being on the mountain. Naess also describes how he finds the experience of being at the summit overrated:

Generally, the most beautiful or otherwise remarkable places on a mountain are to be found along the edges of phenomenal precipices, not at the (geographical) summit which is often a dull place. Nevertheless, climbers often walk or scramble to the summit in fog, merely to complete the climb, as if the latter, as an experience or achievement, could be defined by a machine without reference to qualities specific to human beings.

(2005, 56)

Naess’ expedition could be read as exemplifying what would later be fully articulated as his deep ecological view of nature. The idea that the summit is no longer a goal can be the ultimate consequence of a true, deep ecological approach to mountaineering. The whole mindset of what a mountain is and how we relate to it has changed, from a summit to be conquered to a place to be in nature.

Deep ecology thus offers a revised view of what mountains are. In the background is a process of altering one’s self that results in an ontological Gestalt shift. For Naess, conflicts or disagreements on environmental questions are, most fundamentally, the result of differences in how people understand the world. Taking inspiration from Spinoza, Naess argues that every living being strives for self-realization. But this is not something that takes place in isolation, but rather in interaction with other living beings. He attends to how we identify with the pain of others, as in his 'standard example’ of a drowning flea (1995, 227). Watching the flea die after falling into acid generated in him a feeling of compassion, as a result of identifying with it. And the same happens in nature, self-identification is not only identification with other living beings. Even if we cannot identify our self with a mountain and feel any pain going on there, the mountain is part of an ecosystem and thus in a sense living. When protesters against the building of a dam in Northern Norway used the slogan ‘let the river live’, this would be meant quite literally in Naess’ deep ecology. By being in close contact with the natural environment, mountains included, it becomes part of our extended Self, with a capital ‘S’.

If we take a historical perspective, a revised view of nature like this is not as radical as one might think. Our understanding of what mountains are has changed over time. First, they represented the unknown, mystical, and dangerous—a place to avoid. Throughout the 18th century, this is replaced by a modern scientific view, along with an increased enthusiasm for mountaineering. For Naess, this marks the beginning of what he calls an ‘activistic attitude’, followed by descriptions of mountains as ‘virgin’, 'pristine', and something that must be conquered (1970, 19).

Naess points to another problem associated with the view of mountains as something that must be conquered. Part of our fascination for the mountains is grounded in their greatness. They have considerable symbolic value, representing the sublime, perfect, and invincible (1970, 13). On his view, this relates to the idea that some mountains, or at least some routes on them, are conceived as unclimbable. If every mountain is climbed, they will lose their symbolic value and be reduced to, in Naess’ own words, ‘heaps of minerals’ (2005, 56). As a consequence, part of the meaning in and fascination for mountaineering will be lost.

Naess attends here to an inherent tension in mountaineering, a kind of ‘paradox of the unclimbed’. On the one hand, we strive to climb every mountain, and then every ridge, every face or in other ways challenging routes. At the same time, part of the attraction towards mountaineering depends on a conception of at least some mountains as unattainable goals. And the latter will deteriorate when all peaks are climbed and all challenges are solved. In one sense, this is not unique to mountaineering. Many sports have ideal goals, achievements that you think are hardly possible to achieve, but still act as motivation for athletes. Running a marathon in less than two hours has been such a goal, and still, under normal race conditions, remains so. The 100-meter sprint in less than 10 seconds was, for a long time, another magical limit. Today, the record for men is 9.58. In mountaineering, goals like this are often referred to as ‘last great problems’. An example is ‘The Fantasy Ridge’ on Mount Everest, which was given its name as early as 1921 by George Mallory. The line starts on the right side of the Kangshung face before it meets the demanding North Ridge high up on the mountain. The 3000-meter north-east face of Masherbrum (7,821  m) is another, referred to by the late Austrian alpinist David Lama as ‘one of the hardest unclimbed routes left in the world – sort of like climbing the Eiger, with a Cerro Torre on top’ (Routen 2020).

But there is also an important difference between mountaineering and traditional sports. While you can always raise the bar or lower the time in other sports, mountains are a limited resource. There comes, at least in principle, a day when all routes are climbed, and this is what Naess warns against. It remains, however, a question whether the solution is to stop just below the summit, leaving us with a scenario where all mountains are just nearly climbed. But we can read this instead as the same kind of concern Reinhold Messner raised when he warned against ‘the murder of the impossible’ in the essay with the same title (1971). Some routes should remain unclimbed as long as we don’t have the skills to climb them by fair means but have to resort to extensive use of equipment and bad style. This attention to nature as a finite resource also relates to recent discussions about what characterizes nature sports. The role played by nature is fundamentally different both from being an opponent and an arena, as we find in conventional sports (Krein 2019).

Naess is open to the fact that not everyone will share his view about how we perceive mountains (2005, 56). By doing so, he indirectly addresses one of the main challenges to his deep ecology. It has been criticized for lacking a sufficient normative foundation and being valid only for those already convinced (Anker 2019; Gamlund 2012). Let me just briefly outline the problem. It seems empirically unlikely that everyone will share the kind of experience of Self-identification with nature that Naess presupposes. Ask an urban dweller if he or she thinks happiness consists in identifying with animals, plants, and living nature, and you will not be guaranteed to get an affirmative answer.⁹ And while we may easily feel compassion for wild animals and perhaps also fleas, fewer will share this insight when it comes to identifying with nature in the form of rivers or mountains. We risk ending with a view potentially valid only for those who are already on the inside, be it outdoor enthusiasts, mountaineers, or people living in close contact with mountains, like Naess did.¹⁰

Naess’ insights still have something important to tell us. Consider the latest developments in Himalaya climbing, with massive media attention given to attempts to climb the world’s highest mountains in the fastest possible way. Turning mountaineering into such a quest for records diminishes mountains’ value and status, reducing them to means to obtain personal ends.¹¹ The deep ecological view by contrast calls for a respectful attitude towards mountains, a mindset different from what Naess calls ‘the achievement attitude’.

I began this article by pointing to Voytek Kurtyka and Robert Schauer’s climb of the Shining Wall. Kurtyka is a climber known for his humility and respect for mountains which resembles some of Naess’ insights. His partnership in the mountains with fellow Pole legend Jerzy Kukuczka ended when Kurtyka was bothered over the latter’s plan to win the race with Messner being first on all fourteen 8000-meter peaks (McDonald 2011, 106).

But when Kurtyka and Schauer failed to reach the summit of Gasherbrum IV, it was not because they had planned to do so. Until they were forced to return, they probably had every intention to continue to the top, rather than sharing Naess’ attitude. While deep ecology provides a somewhat radical alternative to understanding mountaineering as a game, emphasizing the value of identifying with nature, there is more to be said about ascents that aim for the summit but fail to reach it. I will end by proposing that we could supplement either of these two views by also understanding mountaineering in an aesthetic way, as a creation of art.

Mountaineering as a form of art

Mountaineering is no doubt an activity that involves a multitude of aesthetic experiences. Climbers have strong perceptual experiences in the mountains that could be classified as both beautiful and sublime. Kinesthetic experiences play a role when we experience movements performed in nature sports as having aesthetic value (Krein 2019). However there is a central distinction between the concepts of aesthetics and art. Aesthetics refers to perceptual experiences; something is perceived as beautiful, ugly, sublime, or any other aesthetic category. Art, in contrast, is the result of an intention to induce an aesthetic effect.¹² And there are many examples of natural objects – sunsets, mountains, waterfalls – that give rise to aesthetic experiences, although we would not say that they are art.

The idea of sports as art is controversial. David Best (1974) argues that sport is different from art because the aesthetic is only incidental in sport. It doesn’t matter how the goal is scored. I will propose that mountaineering must differ from Best’s understanding of sport. The aesthetic is not just incidental but can be part of the principal aim.¹³ I will do so by investigating the idea that climbs themselves, understood as paths towards the summit, can be works of art and not only incidental objects of aesthetic appreciation.

Let us first consider the possible objection that art is man-made, whereas natural features on mountains are not. In 1917, Marcel Duchamps signed a urinal with the name ‘R.Mutt’, entitled ‘La Fontaine’, and exhibited it as a work of art. The example emphasizes the artist’s intention. On this view, to be a work of art is to be an artefact of a kind created by an artist to be presented to an artworld public. If we designate a piece of rock, instead of a urinal, to be art and place it in a gallery, it can be art. This is just what happened in 2001 when British artist John Frankland installed a 4-meter, 100-tonne boulder in the garden of Compton Verney art gallery.¹⁴ And placing it in a gallery doesn’t seem to be required either. Lots of art – statues, paintings, installations, as well as conceptual art – is placed in nature. It thus seems possible to experience natural objects as works of art, given the right context. When it comes to climbing routes, they are also natural objects. A route is a defined set of more or less permanent features on a mountain that together make it possible for us to climb it, collected together by those who made the first ascent.

Let us turn to looking at a few examples of how this process of exploring new routes is described by climbers. Harold Drasdo, British climber and writer, claims that ‘the likeness [of climbing and art] is extensive and important’ (1978, 368). Part of his discussion is on the question of whether the activity of climbing is art, but he also makes the important observation that ‘[c]limbs interpret mountain faces. A climb is the most human relationship possible with a mountain face’ (1978, 370). The more we climb a route, the more we make it part of climbing’s culture and history. And here is what climber Chris Sharma, in the film Fine Lines, says about discovering climbs:

You know, these cliffs that we’re climbing on they’ve been around for millions of years and they’ve always been just random cliffs. But when we come to them and discover these interesting pathways and we kind of bring this interaction to them, they become something much more than just stagnant rocks. They come to life.

(Khreino 2019)

Another of the world’s best climbers, Adam Ondra, agrees, ‘Even a piece of climbing can be a piece of art’ (Ondra Webpage, n.d.).

A common idea emphasized by both Drasdo and Sharma is that climbs are interpretations of nature. They are ways of giving meaning to features in the natural world. New routes are often the result of an intentional creative process where mountaineers seek to find the best lines, be it in terms of aesthetic qualities, route finding, or both. On great alpine faces in the higher mountain ranges, route finding is at its best seeking a solution to an apparently difficult, or even impossible, challenge. And the same is the case for unlocking sequences of movements in sports climbing and bouldering. Drasdo describes this as how ‘[e]very new route makes real an unexplored possibility and the epochal routes are made by those who have seen that a generally accepted or even unnoticed border can be crossed’ (1978, 372).

Conceived as pieces of art, some routes are better than others. They are the result of a combination of skill and creativity, where the context of the art gallery is replaced by a part of nature. Classic routes like The Nose on El Capitan or the 1938-route on the North Face of Eiger are real physical objects out there in nature, masterpieces of route finding discovered through first ascents and left available for those who have the skill and knowledge to appreciate them. They become further established works of art by entering into the history and culture of mountaineering.

The idea that mountaineering creates works of art can be used to supplement either of the first two approaches. Mountaineering is no longer only about reaching the summit or being on the mountain. It can also include the aesthetic experience of a piece of art, either as one created by the first ascensionist or experienced anew by climbers repeating a route.

Besides being one of the greatest mountaineers of all time, Kurtyka is also a climber who has tried to put his experiences into words, comparing mountaineering to a way of living and liberation (1986). Having long regretted not reaching the summit, he finally understood the climb on Gasherbrum IV not as a sports achievement, but as a work of art, in which the missing summit acquired a different dimension. Years later, Kurtyka recalled in an interview:

Strangely enough, the climbing community accepted the ascent as a finished work. That’s an obvious hint that alpinism is an art rather than a sport. Only in art does a missing link contribute to the meaning of a piece.

(Kennedy 2002, 30)

And to those who described their highly difficult and committed adventure as ‘the climb of the century’, Kurtyka replied, ‘Does it make sense to declare a poem the poem of the century?’. Although they, in one sense, lost the game, Kurtyka and Schauer left the climbing community with a masterpiece of a route that still is there for new generations of climbers to appreciate.¹⁵

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In a later essay, Tejada-Flores (1990) modifies his view; climbing cannot be understood as a game alone, but also as an activity that takes place in a social context and involves other people.

2. Rules thus play the function of maintaining a degree of uncertainty of the outcome, necessary for a climbing game to serve as a test (Kretchmar 1975).

3. Tejada-Flores’ essay was originally published in 1967, while Suits’ book came in 1978.

4. The first ascent of Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen was made by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler in 1978. The use of bottled oxygen reduces the physiological effect of high altitude with about 1000 meters.

5. I take this to be the same as the rule as applied by Guinness World Records: ‘for a mountain climb to qualify for a Guinness World Records title, we must insist on a base-camp-to-true-summit ascent, as per the updated 8000ers.com guidelines’, implicitly understood as requiring that you move your own body this distance. (https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2023/9/reclassifying-the-8000ers-758542)

6. Notice also that Tejada-Flores explicitly states that his intention is not to rank climbing games, in the sense that one game is better than another (1978, 20).

7. There is, in principle, no conflict between anthropocentric views and those that seek to preserve nature. One could for instance argue that we have an obligation to take care of nature because it is necessary for our well-being.

8. The mountain is also known as Gauri Sankar, and was first climbed in 1979 (Boardman 1983).

9. Of course, some people living in urban areas may be even more concerned about environmental issues than those living rural areas. My point is just that is seems both logical, and most likely empirically, possible that not everyone shares Naess’ insight.

10. While I have focused on the empirical unlikeliness of identification with nature for everyone, there are other objections to deep ecology as well, for example from ecofeminism and those seeking to end poverty. Much of the critique against deep ecology is found in Witoszek and Brennan (1999), and in Katz, Light and Rothenberg (2000).

11. See Breivik (2019) for discussion of how Naess’ ideas provide basis for a revised understanding of Friluftsliv.

12. See Adajian (2018) for discussion of various concepts of art, how these could lean either towards emphasizing the intention or the aesthetic effect, as well as if a definition of art is possible at all.

13. Best could of course object that mountaineering is not sport in the relevant sense, since it is not competitive.

14. https://warwickshireclimbs.weebly.com/compton-verney.html

15. Thanks to Kevin Krein for comments that substantially improved this paper.